English versus Metric

[JWD]

I used to get on board with the imperial is better side, being very much a traditionalist.

 

Reality has taught me that it doesn't matter in the least.

 

They are simply different ways of doing the same thing.  Use the one you like, be open to uses where other systems may excel, but don't insist that yours is the only way.  If we've learned nothing in woodworking there are many ways to skin any particular cat and they all work fine depending on your goals and standards.  Try talking sharpening on some forums, you'd think you poked some guy in the eye or bashed his favorite truck brand!  These days that is where I put the measurement debate  

Edited February 6 by JWD

[Larry Buskirk]

6 minutes ago, HARO50 said:

I can send you one of my spares if you can't find it!

Thanks John, but I used a butter knife instead of digging through the screwdriver toolbox. 

[Danl]

I prefer metric, work mostly English, and when precision is necessary I work in decimal English.    Danl

[HARO50]

5 minutes ago, JWD said:

you'd think you poked some guy in the eye or bashed his favorite truck brand!

Must be a Ford guy!

[DAB]

measure with a micrometer, mark with chalk, cut with an axe......

[JWD]

1 minute ago, HARO50 said:

Must be a Ford guy!

I've owned almost everything domestic, as well as a Saab just for the sheer misery of it.  My dad once said of my old Ford pickup "well, it's got character, I'll give you that!"

[PeteM]

I use IP (aka "english"), but run into enough engineering SI ("metric") that I'm conversant.  And I lived in Germany for two years.  The one thing that I will always turn to metric:  intervals and center of something.  So much easier to do it in mm.  All those little markings for 1/32, etc, just get sooooo annoying.  But most projects that I run into are authored in IP, which then encourages laziness.

[Ron Dudelston]

A lifetime ago, before I retired in ‘08,I worked in the auto industry and we made the shift to metric.  As a tradesman, it was a hard switch trying to wrap my head around it all because I mentally burnt a bunch of brain cells converting back and forth for it to make sense.  It was easier then to just drop English and use metric.  However, I can still switch back and forth.

[4DThinker]

The tools and software I use have all compromised and settled to use both imperial and/or metric. My CNC software, made by a UK company, lets me switch between or easily convert a metric value to imperial or imperial value to metric. My digital calipers easily switch back and forth or even to fractional imperial values like 1/32 or 3/8 if close. Only my socket wrenches are picky about what they will hold on to. The plyers and crescent wrenches don't care. The power tools don't care. Split scales on my table saw let me pick whichever is closest to the size I want to rip. Screw drivers don't care or even know what they are. Allen wrenches are picky and tricky.  My favorite tape measure has both on it. If it claims to be 3/4" thick it is usually 18mm.   The only real challenge is when I get a drawing with suspect dimensions. No inch or foot marks but numbers that could be centimeters or inches or kilometers or miles. Usually an email to clarify solves that challenge, after which I'll mark the units used on the drawing.  So although I was brought up using feet and inches, I'm agnostic these days. I don't care.

4D    

[John Morris]

When CalDot went to metric about 15 years ago for all their improvement projects, all the plans were in metric, I had to rewire my brain and my pacing and my visual comprehension of what metric looks like in the field as a land surveyor.

For pacing meters, had to take a longer un-natural two step to make a meter, the cut and fills in dirt work were a PITA to get down but got used to it after some time. We normally work in US Survey Foot, so we are working in a foot decimal, as far as the math goes it wasn't that far of a reach to add and subtract on the fly metric, since it was in tenths both US Survey Foot and the Meter.

Then when we finally got used to it, they went back to US Survey Foot after a few years, but it wasn't that big of a deal since our local govt jobs were still using US Survey Foot, it was only CalDot that was using Metric, it was common to go between different jobs in a single day, and my brain had to make the metric to survey foot switch during the drive.

How'd I survive!

[HARO50]

2 hours ago, JWD said:

I've owned almost everything domestic, as well as a Saab just for the sheer misery of it.  My dad once said of my old Ford pickup "well, it's got character, I'll give you that!"

No offense intended, @JWD. My three favourite vehicles were all Fords (Capris). Our son liked Ford pickups, and it became a joke between us, me belittling his Ford, and he insisting that my Nissan Frontier wasn't a "real" pickup!

[Grandpadave52]

Late to the party. Grew up solely on "English." Dad taught me how to read a folding rule and tape correctly (his way). First encounters with much metric was in my first career in the farm equipment business. By the late 70's I had about doubled my tools needing both English and metric sockets, wrenches etc. Fortunately I didn't need metric hammers, pliers or screwdrivers.

 

When I changed careers and moved into the manufacturing world in 1988 I became a metrictician. Although our product was fully U.S. designed and built, all the Engineering prints were in metric except fasteners which were "English" unless of course they were metric. Actually it was a pretty easy transition. I still think in terms of Newton-meters when torquing bolts.

 

Home projects, woodworking, automotive repair, I prefer and use English unless the specs are metric. However in leap years, I'm all metric on February 29th.

[JWD]

1 hour ago, HARO50 said:

No offense intended, @JWD. My three favourite vehicles were all Fords (Capris). Our son liked Ford pickups, and it became a joke between us, me belittling his Ford, and he insisting that my Nissan Frontier wasn't a "real" pickup!

No worries, I'm not offended.  I've had so many vehicles of so many types that it's all one to me.  Usually the most recent one is my favorite!

 

I have a 2018 Toyota that a friend calls the Tacomoma.  No idea why, he just thinks its funny  

[JWD]

1 hour ago, Grandpadave52 said:

Fortunately I didn't need metric hammers, pliers or screwdrivers.

I want a metric crescent wrench!

[JWD]

1 hour ago, John Morris said:

When CalDot went to metric about 15 years ago for all their improvement projects, all the plans were in metric, I had to rewire my brain and my pacing and my visual comprehension of what metric looks like in the field as a land surveyor.

For pacing meters, had to take a longer un-natural two step to make a meter, the cut and fills in dirt work were a PITA to get down but got used to it after some time. We normally work in US Survey Foot, so we are working in a foot decimal, as far as the math goes it wasn't that far of a reach to add and subtract on the fly metric, since it was in tenths both US Survey Foot and the Meter.

Then when we finally got used to it, they went back to US Survey Foot after a few years, but it wasn't that big of a deal since our local govt jobs were still using US Survey Foot, it was only CalDot that was using Metric, it was common to go between different jobs in a single day, and my brain had to make the metric to survey foot switch during the drive.

How'd I survive!

I worked for a surveyor on and off in college.  He was a friend of my dad's so he'd call out of the blue now and then wanting a rod man for anywhere from 3 days to a month.  We were mostly doing mineral claim work, either surveying for new staking or making sure there were no unstaked slivers between poorly laid out claims.

 

My dad tended to use a Brunton and a hip chain (that's what your post reminded me of, hip chains), so I bet his had a bunch of holes.  One of the other friends taught me just enough that I could shoot in sample locations on my first post college job, but I never did enough of it to get beyond that.

[Grandpadave52]

8 minutes ago, JWD said:

I want a metric crescent wrench!

 

Edited February 7 by Grandpadave52

[Zack]

I’m all english with measurements, metric is easier to move from small units to large units but I don’t have a good frame of reference for it like I do with english. Moving a decimal is easier than adding and subtracting fractions but once you’ve done it for so long it becomes muscle memory. If you need to be tighter than a 64th you’re probably using a mic or calipers and measuring in decimals anyway.

[Zack]

There is one use I have for metric. It’s nice for scaling things down to draw out on paper. I have a metric ruler I use for this. I’ll use smaller metric units in place of larger standard units. 1cm=1”, 1cm=1’, 1mm=1’ etc. whatever you need to get it to fit the paper.

[kmealy]

19 hours ago, Larry Buskirk said:

 Now where did I put that left-handed metric slotted screwdriver? 

It's in the drawer with the 10 mm socket

 

[Larry Buskirk]

40 minutes ago, kmealy said:

It's in the drawer with the 10 mm socket

 

 

Nope, looked there it's missing also.